


Every Single Page

by Crumbledown (VerbtheAdjectiveNoun)



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sufjan Stevens (Musician)
Genre: First Person, John Watson Teenager, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Sherlock Holmes Teenager, Song fic, Sufjan Stevens - Freeform, Teenlock, stream of conciousness, teen!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 19:02:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerbtheAdjectiveNoun/pseuds/Crumbledown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based quite heavily on the song Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Single Page

I paced nervously outside your house in my best suit, the first snow of winter crunching beneath my feet. The morning light was late and harsh; the flowers in my hand looked like yellow fire, and those flames sat deep within me. I was trembling, and the fire inside was to blame. The fire burned yellow but burnt like ice; though the sun was late rising, it was still a ridiculous time to visit. But I had to be there. I had to be. I’d not seen you in days, and your father hadn’t been home since you'd seen the doctor.

You opened the kitchen window for a moment to call me inside, and closed it again quickly against the cold winter air.

You were still in your pyjamas when I entered the kitchen. You were pretending to read the paper, but your dark blue eyes were fixated on a single spot. It was three days old. The paper rattled in your hand, and the flowers rattled in mine. The sunshine shone through the window and stroked your bare shoulder. It still looked so strong. You looked strong. You looked strong and fit and healthy... it had to be a mistake. You still looked exactly the same as you did only a few days ago at the party, and that damn photograph.

I placed the flowers beside your cup of tea and sat across from you. Your knuckles whitened as your grip tightened around the edges of the paper, which already showed signs of wrinkling, smudging. I couldn’t blame you. Nobody could blame you.

“They’re from my mum,” I lied.

You relaxed, and I regretted having brought them at all.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t long after the funeral when your father called me. He asked me to meet him at the dockyards to talk. His eyes were red, his nose was red, and the rest of him was paper white. He smelled like cheap whiskey and beer. He told me he was sorry. He cried, and he said he was sorry.

It was too little, and far too late.

 

* * *

 

 

We sat in your bedroom, laughing at some stupid movie. I wasn’t watching it. I was watching you. You were so expressive, even while watching something as brain numbing and tedious as... whatever the hell it was. Your laugh was contagious; it always had been. Nothing could make me laugh before, but the moment you’d look at me and start to giggle, I was lost. The first time I laughed with you, only months ago, I was also lost to you. You’d turned my world on its ear. How did you do that? You were so ordinary. So plain. But you laughed with me, and wanted me to laugh. In 18 years, I’d never found this quality in anyone else.

I wish I could say I didn’t know what I was thinking, but I was fully aware of what I was doing. I knew what I was doing, and I didn’t want to stop. I didn’t want everything to be ruined forever. Maybe if we’d not done what we’d done, things would still be okay. It was that moment that everything exploded, and everything fell apart. I wonder if everything would have hurt less if we had just let it all be.

I wasn’t the only one who moved closer- we were equally pulled by the gravity of attraction, lust, love, want. Our foreheads touched, a kaleidoscope of dirty blonde and black hair caught between our brows. We sat like that for a while. We sat like that forever. It wasn’t a hesitation, or an invitation to pull away. We breathed each other’s air, and I wondered if I’d get the courage before you to just...

Your hand sought mine, and the coldness and clamminess I wasn’t even aware I’d been suffering disappeared nearly instantly. Just like you, too; I’d always been observant, I’d always known how to connect the dots. But you could always make me so much more aware of myself.

Again, gravity affected us equally. Your lip was so close to mine and I felt the humidity intensify between our faces as our breaths quickened, mingled. The first brush was soft. I wouldn’t have felt it if I wasn’t so, so aware of it. In unison, we inhaled each other’s lingering exhalations, and our mouths met again, not nearly as shy, apprehensive, tentative. Your hand left mine and gripped my curls. I didn’t know that I’d wanted you to do just that, and I cupped your face gently with my own hands.

 

 

The movie was forgotten, and we spent our first and last night together. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. I’ll make a point to.

 

* * *

 

 

I found church to be tedious, but your father and sister took great comfort in it. You told me you thought it was creepy, so I came with you, even for the Tuesday night bible studies. We were the youngest people there. I always thought weeknight bible studies were for young people. Your cheeks burned red as every prayer made mention of you, of your family, asking for strength. In a bizarre request from the pastor, I found myself holding hands with him and your sister. Everybody held hands as you lay in the middle of the floor, and we surrounded you, and everybody prayed. I wanted to grab you and run away, run away from the attention and the humiliation. Your dad still glared at me, he made it obvious I had no right in being there. I didn’t care. You asked me to be.  

 

 

Nothing ever happened. I couldn’t save you. The words of all these strangers couldn’t save you, either. If I thought it could have saved you, I wouldn’t have ever left the church. 

 

* * *

 

 

There was a party at Mike Stamford’s. The music was loud, the people were obnoxious, the food was bad, and the host was absent. But the drink was free and plentiful, and we had a little too much. We were jammed like sardines on a small love seat, and there were horny teenagers all over, 2 out of 5 people were gnashing their jaws together in disgusting displays of slurping and saliva. I found it repulsive. I didn’t realise that it had an effect on you.

Cameras had been flashing all night, and we’d ignored and avoided them for the most part.

For the most part. Your lips touched my neck, and it took all of my drunken restraint not to tackle you against the arm of the love seat and join the drooling, affectionate masses. I touched the sleeve of your shirt, and we left the party.

But of course, the kiss you lovingly bestowed on me hadn’t gone undocumented.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Social media, be damned. Your father saw the photograph from the party at Mike’s. He was furious. He screamed and he shouted. He said ugly, horrible, disgusting things. I heard it all from next door, and it made me feel sick with guilt, outrage, and shame. I watched him storm out and leave in the direction of the pub.

 

 

I went over to your house, and you were sitting at the top of the stairs. You told me you were scared. I wanted to take you into my arms, to tell you I was sorry. I tried. But you pushed me away as tears poured down your face. You threw your shoes on and stumbled out of the house, tripping on the laces. You shouted at me to leave you alone. I didn’t know what else to do, so I did. I left you alone until I had flowers in my hands.

 

* * *

 

 

Your sister couldn’t bear to go into your room, so she asked me to. She assured me your father was at the pub, and though I agreed to, I didn’t think I could do it, either. It looked exactly the same as it ever did. It smelled the same, and the last movie we watched together was still sitting on top of the player.

In your bedside drawer, I found your journal and pictures of your family. Mostly pictures of your mother. I had always wondered if you had any. I never got to meet her. I’d assumed your father threw them all away, or your sister had taken them with her to university.

Of course I read your journal.  Of course. You were so ordinary in the beginning, John. You were so ordinary. The way you wrote was charming. You were so ordinary, and you were so earnest. And when you wrote of me, the whole tone changed. And it was true for me, too. When I think of you, I feel myself change completely. Our words got softer, and when I realised just how long you’ve loved me, just as long as I’ve loved you, from the moment we met only a year ago, the pain in my chest was bludgeoning.

 

 

The photographs of your mother were already tear-stained, but your journal was pristine. It was pristine until I put my nose into it and inhaled your thoughts, your confessions, and your love. And I’ll be the only person to ever read it. I ruined every single page.

  

* * *

 

 

I dozed fitfully in the waiting room, as I had done for weeks. They would only allow me to see you for an hour at a time, once every few hours. I just never left. I sat there for weeks, and every day a nurse came shuffling in, appropriately mournful with her head bowed in respect. Every day, a nurse told a family, a friend, a lawyer, that the person they cared for was gone. And every day, I feared she’d be coming for me. I learned to differentiate her shuffling steps of mourning from her every day _you can see him_ steps. She was my personification of Death.

 

 

A thud against the window jolted me out of dozing, and I went to look outside. Directly below the window, a chaffinch lay with a broken neck on the thawing winter ground. Behind me, I heard the nurse’s sad walk, and a cold gripped me as I recounted being the only person in the waiting room that day.

 

* * *

 

 

You looked peaceful. The atrium of the small church had pale stained glass, and the lighting was so natural, and cold with residual winter’s frost. You looked so natural. I struggled to remain composed as I saw what I wanted to see the most; your chest moving with soft, even breaths. Soft, even breaths not afforded to you as you fought for them with every bit of your being only days before. The sunshine looked so bright and strong on your back, the day I brought you flowers. And again, the sunshine played tricks on me; your feeble frame still looked capable of breathing, of a beating heart, of an active mind.

The stained glass portrait at the head of the church looked like your father, and it gave me no comfort to think of him as being there. As I left the church, I watched his car speed off from the kerb. He’d sat outside the entire time. If he’d chosen that moment to approach me, rather than days later... maybe then I’d have forgiven him.

He should have been there for you John. He was your father, and he should have loved you as much as I do.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Sufjan Stevens, and I've always believed this song wasn't exactly in order, so I've written the story out of order to align with the disjointedness of the song, but I left a lot of (what I feels to be) confusion and anger at God out of it, and replaced it with feelings of resentment towards John's father.


End file.
